steps like raindrops
by midnight.anamnesis
Summary: All there is, is you and her. — alternatively: She tells you, "I'm going to show you what's so great about the rain, and I refuse to make it fake!" (dirk!pov, no sburb!au, oneshot)


You can honestly say it rains too much for your tastes. You may live in bloody, fucking Texas, but, contrary to popular belief, the whole place ain't a waterless desert.

It rains enough that the falling water had lost all your naive facsination by the tender age of six, which also happened to be the year your parents died in a car accident. It was raining that night, too, and you wish you don't remember it as vividly as you do. Blinding headlights, deafening honks, you and your brother helpless on the sidewalk... You always try not to think about it. Of course, you can't really help it when it rains, though, because those two things are intertwined too tightly within the recesses of your mind. The feel of tears on your face is too reminiscent of the cursed downpours, too, so you haven't cried in years.

You're currently 19 and living with your older brother, and your life is quite normal. Well, as normal as it can be with a 29 year old, superstar brother who's rarely ever around. You surely aren't bitter about the fact, either. Human company is found in your three best friends when none else is given, although even that sparse amount of socialization is rare now that college has started. But it's not as if you're lonely or anything; no, not at all. All of this is your version of normal and you're pretty content with it.

Of course, that small sense of normalcy still can't make the rainy, sleepless nights any easier, though, even as you curl up with Lil Cal and your faithful huskie Maplehoof at your feet. It might be four in the morning and everyone will be asleep, and you're left to stare up at your ceiling with headphones blaring over your ears. The sickening headache when you wake up is customary and you don't care too much, so long as the incessant tapping of the rain was blocked out over the night.

Ugh, why does it have to rain so goddamn much?

In fact, it's raining right now. You look out the glass doors of the club and see water coming down in sheets and it makes you frown. You're the only one in the building, wiping the tables and mopping the dance floor, and on top of that and the lonely walk home, the universe has decided to fuck you over and have it rain.

You growl, violently dumping all the dirty mop water down the drain. It splashes everywhere, and you're forced to spare a moment to towel that up, too. Finally, you give the club a quick once over and nod in satisfaction at the sparkling clean result of your meticulous work. The blaring music coming from the speakers is switched off swiftly, and you grab your jacket and umbrella. The rain patters tauntingly outside, and you aggressively glare at it through transparent doors.

You switch the lights off and pull up your hood, stepping outside and locking up the club for the night. Or morning, considering how it's actually well past 2am. The umbrella is quickly opened above your head and you hold it tightly, praying that the tumultuous wind will spare its flimsy, metal frame.

Your stride is brisk and rushed and you just want to be home and out of this fucking downpour. Every tap of the raindrops on your umbrella is brief and arrhythmic and it only serves to glue a scowl to your face. Hyperactive orange eyes fly across their surroundings tirelessly, instinctively searching for trucks or motorcycles or anything that could crash like the car on that fateful night thirteen years ago.

You see nothing, of course; the stretches of road exposed under the dull glow of the few and far apart street lamps are all you can vaguely discern. Your intense focus on the road causes you to disregard the puddles until your shoes slip into an inch deep of water and you swear profoundly. As if you needed another reason to loathe the rain. Wet squishes sound whenever you take a step and you're nearly knocked off those soggy feet as a strong gust catches under your umbrella. You hear a snap and a crack and hope that the sound isn't your umbrella giving the fuck up. The universe hates you, you rationally decide.

The raindrops quicken and so does your pace as you tighten your grip on the umbrella. For every step you take, a handful of drops sound again over your head. It's stupid and annoying and you do not appreciate it one fucking bit.

Your eyes land on something standing in the middle of the street; that something turns out be a some_one_ and they are in the least rain-protective clothes ever. Their arms are stretched outward and their face is tilted up, and you're afraid that they might just get hit by a car in their current position. A particularly sudden burst of wind catches you unprepared, and your strong grip on the umbrella handle becomes your downfall as you're wrenched off the sidewalk and into a puddle. The lining of your umbrella is torn clean off and the metal frame is tossed out of your grip, but you're too busy swearing fluently to care. It seems the figure had noticed you and your clamorous fall because there's a series of footsteps before two warm hands are gripping your forearms and dragging your sodden ass up. Orange eyes meet pink ones and both pairs of them widen.

"Dirk?"

"Roxy!"

Her surprised expression morphs into a grin and a giggle when she registers that the two of you had spoken simultaneously. She's drenched to the bone, wind pulling viciously at her hair and clothes, but she still looks bright as ever. The cold dampness seeping into your clothes and hair has you feeling very much the opposite.

"What are you doing out here?" you ask her incredulously. "It's raining like no fucking tomorrow!"

"I know!" she replies, nodding eagerly. "Isn't it great?"

You frown. "No, of course not! It fucking blows, and you could get sick."

She just shrugs. You're shaking your head at her as you try hopelessly to brush yourself off, and when you're done, she shoves the mangled frame of your umbrella into your hands.

"That's definitely a goner," she tells you and you groan.

"Fucking weather must hate my guts," you mutter under your breath.

"It's just a little rain, Di. And some wind. I don't think it hates you _that _much."

"I can take the wind, actually. The rain, though, is far less desirable."

She politely disagrees with your statement, stretching her arms out and twirling amidst the downpour, careless to the fact that you're still in the middle of the street. "Are you kidding me?" she shouts, "This is fuckin' amazing!"

You don't reply, instead walking back to the sidewalk and hiding under a small but relatively dry eave. Your shades are foggy and streaked, so you slip them off. When she notices your absence, her carefree grin falls off her face and she walks over to your side.

"You really don't like the rain, huh?"

"It's a nuisance," is all you say.

The corners of her lips fall into a frown as she asks you, "Well, what's so bad about it?"

"It just is," you say, jamming your hands into your pockets. Your damp clothes cling uncomfortably to your skin and you're too cold and it's all very dumb. "Rain is unnecessarily cold and wet and because of it, I am now fucking drenched. I don't see what can possibly be so amazing about it."

The way she's looking at you almost makes you feel guilty because all her pink eyes show are disappointment, but you immediately push back the gnawing feeling in your gut. Rain thrums against the vinyl eaves and the nonstop pitter-pattering is slowly driving you insane. You groan, closing your eyes and inhaling deeply through your nose.

"I mean, look at yourself, Ro— you were standing in the middle of the fuckin' street. If someone were driving, they could have not seen you in this god forsaken downpour and then you could've died!"

She sighs, shaking her head, and you could've sworn you saw her look at you with something akin to pity, but it's gone as she rolls her eyes and puts on a smile.

"You worry _way_ too much, Di, you know that? I knew what I was doing, and it'd take a lot more than a little rain and a nonexistent car to get the best of me."

She steps back into the street, back into the pouring rain and whipping wind, and you're too slow to catch her. You probably couldn't stop her if you were fast enough, anyway. She moves quickly; each step she takes is smooth and agile as she twirls unabashedly across the street.

You watch her with pursed lips as she prances and cheers and laughs, waiting for something inevitably bad to happen. It doesn't, though; no cars come drunkenly racing down at terrifying speeds to slam into someone unsuspecting and force you to once again observe like some useless puppet without its master. In fact, the whole place is deserted. All there is, is you and her. You're hiding alone under the eaves with rain pounding above your head and she's dancing freely in the downpour with a brilliant smile as she steps like raindrops— light and quick.

She dashes over to you and you barely have time to react as you're yanked out into the street, umbrella and shades still in the process of clattering to the ground by the time you're out.

"Roxy, what the hell?" you exclaim, and she immediately shushes you with a hand to your face. You peel off the offending limb and she tells you, "I'm going to show you what's so great about the rain, and I refuse to make it fake!"

You groan, "_Oh my god_," but she shushes you again, so you opt to pointedly roll your eyes and tighten the hood around your head.

"First of all, Dirky," she says in a tone so serious, it isn't serious at all, "cold rain is a vicious stereotype." She grabs your hand— you can't help but notice that she's so impossibly warm— and holds it out so rain falls into it. Your first reaction is to recoil, but she has a tight grip on your wrist and you're forced to feel the water as it gathers in your palm. It's freezing cold, but as the wind dies down for a second, it isn't. It's warmer than you, and she must have noticed your surprise because you look up to see her grinning. The next thing you know, she's released you only to tug your hood down, laughing as you swear fluently and try to pull it back on. You never get to do so; she grabs both your hands, telling you to stop flippin' your shit and take it like a big boy.

It is done so with a heaving sigh on your part, and she's grinning in satisfaction the entire time. Knowing her, it's probably a mischievously sadistic satisfaction, too, as she wraps her fingers tightly around yours and watches you try and fail to blow a wet strand of hair out of your face.

The wind returns, bringing the stinging cold back with it, and you shiver. She pulls you along, saying that you should keep moving if you want to stay warm. Your fingers find themselves intertwined with hers and you can feel her warmth contrasting starkly with the outside air. You have to jog to keep up with her, and even then she is half-dragging you with no regards to the probability of slipping.

"Man, you are so slow!" she shouts above your thumping footsteps and the pattering rain, and your only reply is to tell her to slow down.

"No way!" is all she says before tightening her hands around yours and twirling you about. You, being the oh-so coordinated person you are, trip over your own feet and careen to the ground. She wrenches you up at the very last moment, and your weight is thrown her way, causing the both of you to tumble backwards in a flurry of rain-soaked limbs. You land in a large puddle with a _thump_ and she yelps from the force of you falling atop her.

You scramble up, ready to pull her up and shout about how you had fucking warned her about this kind of shit and running in the rain is a stupid-ass idea but the words instantly die in your throat because _she's laughing_. She's cackling, arms wrapped around her stomach, and all you can do is stare.

"Oh my god— like _holy shit_! That was fuckin awesome!" She sits up in her pool of a puddle, still giggling every few seconds, wide grin splitting her face. That grin morphs into a smirk and she grabs your hand, pulling your ass back down to sit with her in her puddle.

"Man, that was straight-up SICK!" she cheers, and you resist the urge to groan. "We should do that again!"

"Let's not," you mutter, too wet to honestly care about getting out of the puddle any longer.

"Aw come on, Di; you gotta admit that was pretty fun."

"You _fell_, Rox. How was that fun?"

"Think of it as a waterslide; how is it _not_ fun? Besides, I'm absolutely fine."

You sigh.

"A-okay, Dirky. Really."

She leaps up in a perfectly a-ok manner, and helps you up, too. Instead of towing you back along the street like you expected, she leads you back to the sidewalk. The two of you sit there in the rain and cold wind and neither of you quite lets go of the other's hand.

"That was a nasty fall," you comment when the silence becomes too much to bear.

"_Dirk_. I am fine. Stop worrying!"

You press your lips into a thin line but make no move to argue. The sound of rain pittering on you and the sidewalk is all that fills the air for a moment before she speaks again.

"In fact, if it wasn't raining, I probably would've eaten it bad," she adds. "_Another_ reason why rain is amazing."

She pokes you repeatedly on the arm, regaling countless other textbook reasons why rain is beneficial, and you scoff, if only to hide the amused grin fueled by her uncanny knowledge of precipitation trivia. Your feet start jittering despite yourself in an attempt to stay active and warm, but a few minutes of that has only left you tired and still cold.

"I'm tellin' you, Di. Rain is great!" she insists for the nth time. "It's like the Earth is taking a shower. I mean, with all those dirty hippies, it probably needed that shower, too."

This time around, you can't help but snort at her comment. Her eyes light up at your reaction.

"You got a point there, Rox," you tell her with a noncommittal shrug.

"Fuck yeah I do. Am I good at makin' you love rain or am I good at making you love rain?"

"I'm going to have to go with neither," you tell her solemnly, but your coy smirk blatantly contrasts that tone.

"Oh, you totally know that it's both, Dirk. Just admit it!"

"Okay," you start, "so maybe the rain _isn't_ exactly demon spawn sent from the high skies solely to torment me."

She smirks. "Aaaand?"

You sigh, rolling your eyes. "And I admit; it is not that bad."

"That's the spirit!" she exclaims, beaming happily. The corners of your lips twitch up at the sight. "I told you there's nothing to hate about the rain!"

"You know what I don't really mind about the rain?" you ask her, and she blinks, raising an eyebrow in question. It's your turn to smirk. "The way you grin like a idiot whenever you talk about it."

She sticks her tongue out at you and grabs both your hands again, forcing you to mess up your own hair even more than it already was.

"Ruining my hair doesn't make the fact any less true, Lalonde."

"It _does_ make you look like an idiot, however, Strider. So we're even."

You wiggle one of your hands out of her grip, but before you can attempt to fix your hair, she tells you to stop, reaching a hand up to pat it down herself.

"There we go," she says, and you highly doubt that your hair looks any better. Nonetheless, you change the course of your freed hand, instead heading to push a wet lock of hair out of her own face and tuck it behind her ear. Your hand stays there, pressing against the wonderfully warm skin of her cheek, and her splitting grin turns into a slack-lipped look that is simply and innocently curious.

The wind has hit a standstill, but it's still drizzling around you, and you weigh the situation in your mind. You only contemplate for so long before she does what you shouldn't have thought twice about doing and leans in, eyes drifting shut as she presses her lips against yours.

She's still warm despite everything, and she feels even warmer fitted perfectly against you. You snake an arm around her waist and pull her closer, relishing in everything— the way her touch sends heat and tingles flying across your skin, how she tastes like sweet dessert wine and smells like lavender and fresh rainwater. Her hands find themselves wrapped around your neck, deft fingers tugging teasingly at your hair, and you use the opportunity to kiss her back harder and drown in the heart-racing dizziness that's overwhelming your senses.

When you pull apart, the both of you are drenched and breathing hard, but for once you don't care about either. She tightens her arms around you and exhales breathily, lips quirked up into what can most accurately be described as an intoxicated grin. You'd know because the same expression undoubtedly covers your face, too. She melts into you as you meet her lips one more time, and you add kissing amidst gentle raindrops to the list of things you don't mind about the rain.


End file.
